Month: September 2017

The past few weeks, I have been reading many responses from “moderate conservative” Christians to the Nashville Statement controversy. Many of them attempt to explain why liberal/progressive Christians are (typically) affirming of LGBTQA issues, while others attempt to dissect why some conservatives are stuck in the middle and not sure what side to take (while sneakily pointing out where liberals are wrong as well).

Most of these lists or examinations of why a Christian (conservative, moderate, liberal, anything) would become LGBTQA affirming are unfortunate at best. The authors do a pretty good job at exposing their utter lack of understanding of the liberal/progressive Christian viewpoint on this issue. Many progressive Christians are not LGBTQA affirming because they ignore the Bible or church tradition, but because they have studied it all deeply and come to different conclusions on what is in the Scriptures and the history of the Church.

Full stop. This is their reason. If you don’t agree, fine – you can believe what you want about these issues. But you don’t get to re-write anyone’s reasons because you disagree with them. You don’t get to define or re-write their reasons. That would go for the moderates and conservatives that are considering the progressive side as well. Taking their well-thought out, or extensively wrestled with, or even intensely debated reasons and re-imagining them as a list of moral failures or lack of personal fortitude is just inappropriate.

Don’t forget that most church traditions believed that all people of color and all women were less than white men until they changed their stance within recent memory. Or that the word “homosexual” first appeared in writing in 1869 – meaning that it probably didn’t exist as the same concept it does today much before then. So stop claiming “long church traditions” on a word that has only existed for as long as some church traditions have believed in letting women vote or letting black people drink out of the same fountain.

If you are not going to be bothered to understand the progressive position (or why some conservatives are interested in it) deeply enough to get it right, or to misrepresent it when you write about it, then just don’t say anything until you can speak Truth.

Or let’s look at it this way: Rod Drehler makes a list of what he thinks motivates “conservative Christians who are considering adopting the pro-LGBT position.” These reasons probably are true for some, but after reading through books and blog posts of many people that are wrestling with this question, I find little Truth in Drehler’s points. Plus, Drehler’s list is really just a generic list of bad reasons why people make decisions, with a few words tweaked to make it about his point. One could easily tweak those few words another way to make it true about why many other conservatives staunchly stick with anti-LGBTQA positions:

Discomfort with being called or thought of as a friend of gays, and with the social stigma attached to it

A desire to deny homosexuals the blessings of marriage.

Belief that marriage is intrinsically complementary, in terms of male and female, but no ability to point out where that is commanded in the Bible beyond a few anecdotal references by the writers of certain Biblical passages that are never attributed as direct commands from God (aka, never printed in red letters for a reason).

An inability to explain why gay marriage and homosexuality in general is wrong, except for “because the Bible tells us so.” [yes, this one stays the same – think about it]

Having no real dialogue with a gay or transgendered person in one’s life, and not understanding how that person suffers — especially if that person is one’s child.

Belief that the struggle over sexuality within the church is not that important, and is keeping the church from focusing on more important things (e.g., “When can we stop talking about gay marriage and get back to preaching the Gospel?”)

Resignation over the fact that the church has solidified so much with Purity Culture to this point that it makes no practical sense to reconsider lines based more on 1950s sexual frustration than Biblical concepts. Better to accept that reality and to work within it as best one can to preach, teach, and live the Gospel

If you are really want to know how many progressives have thought through this issue from scripture, from history, from logic, from tradition, and from any other angle they are accused of ignoring, I would encourage you to read these posts (as a starting point):